sciencehttps://barnard.edu/taxonomy/term/44/all
enProf. Janna Levin Explains Why Scientists Keep Innovating in the Face of Rejection or Failurehttps://barnard.edu/news/prof-janna-levin-explains-why-scientists-keep-innovating-face-rejection-or-failure
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/11/29/janna-levin-black-hole-blues-science/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+brainpickings%2Frss+%28Brain+Pickings%29" target="_blank">Click here for full story. </a></p>
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</div></div></div>Tue, 29 Nov 2016 05:00:00 +0000rmk215672136 at https://barnard.eduProf. Martin Stute Featured for His Research on Turning Carbon Emissions to Stonehttps://barnard.edu/news/prof-martin-stute-featured-his-research-turning-carbon-emissions-stone
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-15" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">environment</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">sustainability</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-14" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">climate change</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-131" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">environmental science</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><a href="https://venitism.wordpress.com/2016/11/03/turning-carbon-emissions-to-stone/" target="_blank">Click here for the full story</a></p>
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</div></div></div>Fri, 04 Nov 2016 15:04:42 +0000hrg212171381 at https://barnard.eduProfessor Janna Levin Moderates Panel on Extraterrestrial Life https://barnard.edu/news/professor-janna-levin-moderates-panel-extraterrestrial-life
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-129" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">astronomy</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><a href="http://scienceline.org/2016/10/where-the-hell-is-everybody/" target="_blank">Click here for full story.</a></p>
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</div></div></div>Mon, 17 Oct 2016 16:14:11 +0000rmk215670281 at https://barnard.eduProf. Janna Levin Pens an Essay about the Nobel Prize and One Research Team's Prizeworthy Discoveryhttps://barnard.edu/news/prof-janna-levin-pens-essay-about-nobel-prize-and-one-research-teams-prizeworthy-discovery
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-128" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">physics</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/10/06/496657435/on-waiting-for-a-nobel-prize-announcement" target="_blank">Click here for the full story</a></p>
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</div></div></div>Thu, 06 Oct 2016 16:36:05 +0000hrg212169986 at https://barnard.eduProf. Janna Levin Interviewed About Making Science More Inclusivehttps://barnard.edu/news/prof-janna-levin-interviewed-about-making-science-more-inclusive
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-129" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">astronomy</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><a href="http://www.cuny.tv/show/scienceandu/PR2005272" target="_blank">Click here for the full story.</a></p>
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</div></div></div>Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:54:53 +0000acooke68911 at https://barnard.eduDiving into STEM https://barnard.edu/news/diving-stem
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-97" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">psychology</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-130" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">biology</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-60" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">neurology</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-126" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">chemistry</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-128" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">physics</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-43" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">student</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-16" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">technology</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="320" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL7NHU56YFE6Su9cbzLQYbr4axDCkDFIuw" width="480"></iframe></p>
<p>For the third year in a row, students had the unparalleled opportunity to conduct high-level science research on campus and in labs around New York as part of Barnard's <a href="https://barnard.edu/summer-research-institute">Summer Research Institute</a> (SRI). This summer, 126 Barnard students (plus five students from additional colleges) studying a range of scientific topics had the opportunity to work with 60 mentors at Barnard, Columbia, CU Medical Center, NYS Psychiatric Institute, and several other local institutions.<br /><br /><em>See the collection of five videos above to learn about some of this year's research projects.</em><br /><br />
Among SRI's chief goals is to create a community of scientists. Participating students not only work collaboratively on research teams, but take part in events designed to get them talking to each other across disciplines—with physicists and biologists sharing research details over dinner, or chemists and environmental science majors chatting about their work after a lecture.<br /><br />
One key feature of SRI is that each student receives funding so that they can focus exclusively on their research without taking on extra jobs. The funding is secured through various sources including: Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, Con Edison, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Henry Luce Foundation and the Mellon Fund for Enhancing the Sciences at Barnard, as well as a number of anonymous donors.</p>
<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-4147b19e-99b9-8adb-a9cb-2574d22e84fa">To learn more about the Barnard Summer Research Institute <a href="https://barnard.edu/summer-research-institute">visit the program’s website</a>.</p>
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</div></div></div>Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:43:52 +0000rdouglas68326 at https://barnard.eduAdviseStreamhttps://barnard.edu/student-services/dean-studies/your-education-beyond-barnard-combined-plan-graduate-study-pre-advisestream
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <h2>What is AdviseStream?</h2>
<h2><div class="oembed oembed-video">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBfe5BLGvJA" class="oembed-title">What can AdviseStream do for students?</a>
<span class="oembed-content">
<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xBfe5BLGvJA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> </span>
</div>
</h2>
<div>Health Professions Advising Team at Barnard College strongly encourages all students interested in health professional schools to utilize the innovative processes, tools, and content in <a href="http://barnard.advisestream.com/" target="_blank">AdviseStream</a>. This developmental advising system has many features that will aid you throughout your undergraduate years and beyond as you explore, plan and apply to health professional schools. Some of AdviseStream's features include:<br />
</div>
<ul><li>Easily set up a <strong>personal four year plan</strong> for courses, clinical, research and community service experiences.</li>
<li>Present yourself for<strong> internships</strong> <strong>and jobs </strong>with a <strong>powerful resume</strong> <strong>and portfolio </strong>tool that builds on your entered data.</li>
<li>Share your planners with your advisor(s) to easily collaborate and <strong>make better, informed decisions</strong>. </li>
<li>Utilize planners <strong>to manage the 18-month application process.</strong> Prepare and organize your primary application before services open.</li>
<li>Request and manage individual<strong> <a href="https://barnard.edu/student-services/dean-studies/graduate-school-advising/pre-health-professions/current-applicants">Letters of Recommendation</a></strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Participate</strong> in the <strong><a href="https://barnard.edu/student-services/dean-studies/graduate-school-advising/pre-health-advising/current-applicants">Committee Letter of Evaluation</a></strong><a href="https://barnard.edu/student-services/dean-studies/graduate-school-advising/pre-health-advising/current-applicants"> </a>application process to receive a Committee Letter to<strong> </strong>be sent to central application service(s).</li>
</ul><h2>How to Request and Set Up an AdviseStream Account</h2>
<p><em><strong>Applicants with an Active Barnard Email Account:</strong></em></p>
<ol><li>Go to <a href="http://barnard.advisestream.com/" target="_blank">barnard.advisestream.com </a>and click "Create Account" or use the link in the menu.</li>
<li>Enter the requested information including the <strong>access token: </strong>808e00abf05e79bbca2c347c130f3aaa</li>
<li>Select “Undergraduate” for Program Type and agree to the terms of use. ​</li>
<li>Complete your basic profile, set your intent to apply in the Apply Widget, and begin exploring.</li>
<li>For technical support, use the "Support" button from any AdviseStream webpage.</li>
</ol><p><em><strong>Applicants without a Barnard Email Account (e.g. Alumna)</strong></em></p>
<ol><li>Request an AdviseStream account by <a href="mailto:prehealthadvising@barnard.edu">emailing us</a>. You will receive an invitation to create an account via email, which will include a "token" number. </li>
<li>After receiving the token, go to <a href="http://barnard.advisestream.com/" target="_blank">barnard.advisestream.com/ </a>and click "Create Account" or use the link in the menu.</li>
<li>Enter the requested information, including the access token sent to you via email. Select “Undergraduate” for Program Type and agree to the terms of use. </li>
<li>Complete your profile and begin exploring. </li>
<li>For technical support, use the "Support" button from any AdviseStream webpage.</li>
</ol><h2>Why use AdviseStream? </h2>
<p>Here’s what students are saying:</p>
<ul><li>"My favorite part of the program is its organization and understanding of everything premed."</li>
<li>"Having everything laid out step-by-step helps the process feel more manageable and less overwhelming."</li>
<li>"I saw not only the details of my application, but the bigger picture in terms of themes and strengths."</li>
</ul><p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p> </p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 07 Aug 2016 00:12:48 +0000acipolet68221 at https://barnard.eduSay What? https://barnard.edu/magazine/spring-2016/say-what
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>For most people, the twin processes of listening and speaking are so natural that we never pause to think about how they work. But in the moment when a word or phrase hits the ear, the brain springs into action. “How do we know a sound is speech at all?” asks professor of psychology Robert Remez. “You can think about this from the perspective of a baby, lying in the nursery and hearing dogs barking, birds chirping, doorbells buzzing—and sometimes, a voice speaking. Out of that welter of sound, the baby somehow orients toward speech and doesn’t worry about the dogs and the doorbells. But how does the cognitive system recognize that speech is there?”</p>
<figure class="right"><img alt="" class="media-image" height="300" width="300" typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/styles/wysiwyg_medium/public/indesign/spring_2016/ericpetersen_earsinewave_cmyk_for_print_opt.jpg?itok=9v_ohTN6" /><figcaption>Illustration by Eric Petersen</figcaption></figure><p>Since 1980, Remez has been conducting experiments on speech perception in his Barnard laboratory with six to eight undergraduates, who are his partners in what he calls “an adventure in the direction of the unknown.” Over the years, he’s relied heavily on his students to shape the course of the research, which focuses primarily on the way we perceive speech and how we follow it in quiet or acoustically busy environments.</p>
<p>In the lab, the students work with Remez to build “sine-wave speech,” an artificial form of speech stripped of familiar acoustic markers like tone and timbre. The result is a series of robotic-sounding beeps and whistles that convey a linguistic message despite their unnatural quality. By manipulating the samples and playing them for test subjects in experiments, Remez and his students can learn about how we track and identify speech. These findings can be applied in a wide range of fields, from voice-recognition technology to the creation of assistive devices for use in impaired hearing. The work of the lab is primarily supported by a grant from the National Institute on Deafness, part of the National Institutes of Health, which Remez was first awarded 30 years ago.</p>
<p>Some of Remez’s discoveries about the way we perceive speech can seem counterintuitive. Instead of listening for sounds, we are actually listening for modes of variation. It’s not unlike in music, where a melody comprises a series of intervals, rather than a specific set of notes. “That’s why we’re able to understand each other over the telephone,” he says. “If it were all about the sound, the corruptions and distortions imposed by the telephone connection would make it impossible to recognize the linguistic message. What we’re listening for are the relationships in an evolving pattern of change.”</p>
<p>Remez talks about his research almost poetically, as a quest for knowledge rather than a solution to a specific problem. He is a musician—before he went to graduate school to study speech, he played the bass fiddle in a band—and sees a natural bridge in his work between the humanities and sciences. Because of his appreciation for the arts, he helps students who want to continue their study of graphic arts, theatre, dance, and music by integrating those interests into their research projects. And to encourage his students to venture into the city, he organizes several yearly field trips to restaurants in different parts of Manhattan.</p>
<p>His collaborative approach draws students with backgrounds in many disciplines. Jessica Nowinski ’92 was planning to major in theatre when she began working with Remez as a first-year. By the time she was a senior, she had switched to psychology. Remez helped her design a senior thesis that incorporated her love of theatre—she examined whether speech performed by actors is perceived differently than spontaneous speech.</p>
<p>Working in Remez’s laboratory gave her the confidence to consider a career in science, says Nowinski, who is now a research psychologist at NASA: “Before I worked in Robert’s lab, I never thought of myself as a scientist. But Robert also never treated me as only a student in his lab—he wanted me to grow as a whole person. It was important for him that we continued to appreciate the things we loved outside the world of science.”</p>
<p>Jennifer Fellowes ’93, who worked on her senior thesis with Remez, says the professor sets the bar high from the first day. “The expectation is that everyone should be able to research and conduct an experiment that can be published in a well-regarded, peer-reviewed journal,” says Fellowes, who is now a psychiatrist in New York City. “But there’s no fear that you won’t measure up. The sense is that we’re all doing high-quality research together, and we’re having fun.”</p>
<p>Many of the students who work in his lab begin by meeting Remez in the classroom. He offers a lecture class each fall that introduces students to the ways we perceive the world through the five senses, as well as through our sense of balance. His course “Perception and Language” is a scientific survey of language from the listener’s perspective, everything from the physical acoustics of speech to the way we process metaphors.</p>
<p>To conclude the class, he gives students a challenge. “It’s fun to finish out the semester with a bit of Celtic transcendentalism,” he says. “I take a passage from a poem by Yeats, and I ask them, how would you understand someone who came up to you in a bus shelter and said, ‘Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer’?” The point, he explains, is that poetry is a tricky kind of speech that isn’t exactly directed to the listener, so we listen differently. He creates these unusual exercises to allow the students to grapple with scholarly questions and to feel that they can make their own contributions to the scientific conversation.</p>
<p>To hone their professional abilities, Remez encourages his students to present their research at academic conferences and works with them on skills such as interviewing. “My best teachers taught me how to be taken seriously,” he says. “I want to give the students practice in explaining and arguing and thinking through questions, but also in how to collaborate, how to work generously on a team, when to bear down, when to wear your knowledge lightly.”</p>
<p>Many of the women who work in his laboratory stay in touch with each other—and with Remez—for decades. One of Remez’s aims is to create an environment where mentoring and cooperation are the norm. “My goal is to get the students to see me as a peer, someone they can speak their mind to,” Remez says. “Often they’re right and I’m wrong, but I’m happy to lose those arguments because it means we make progress together.”</p>
<p>Every Friday, Remez and the students in the lab gather—over food, of course—to discuss their research projects. For Samantha Caballero ’17, it’s one of the highlights of her week. “At first I thought it would be scary to give my perspective on what we’re doing, but now it’s just a fun, freewheeling conversation,” she says. “He just really wants to hear what we have to say.”</p>
<p>Lauren Beltrone ’17, who works in Remez’s lab, appreciates his welcoming approach: “He wants to capture your imagination and give you something to chew on intellectually. You learn a lot, but you have to work for it.”</p>
<p><a href="http://columbia.edu/~remez/remez/Talker_Identification.html">Visit Remez's website to listen to examples of sine-wave speech and learn more about his research.</a></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Topics:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-33" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">research+scholarship</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-101" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">faculty</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-97" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">psychology</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-43" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">student</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-ledeimage field-type-image field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Lede image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/indesign/spring_2016/ericpetersen_earsinewave_cmyk_for_print_opt.jpg" width="351" height="351" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Section:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/magazine/article-section/syllabus" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Syllabus</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-art-sub-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Sub-section:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/article-sub-section/curriculum" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">curriculum</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-subtitle field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Subtitle:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Robert Remez untangles how our brains decipher speech out of the jumble of sounds around us</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-byline field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Byline:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-associated-articles field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Associated Articles:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">A Language Grows Up</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-share field-type-addthis field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Share:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-issue field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Issue:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Spring 2016</div></div></div>Fri, 20 May 2016 15:52:32 +0000ldownsbu66106 at https://barnard.eduGender Difference https://barnard.edu/magazine/spring-2016/gender-difference
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>In 2014, the governing body for international track and field competitions banned Indian sprinter Dutee Chand from women’s races, claiming that the naturally high levels of testosterone in her body gave her an unfair competitive advantage. The case, which ignited an international controversy, raised questions that professor Rebecca (Beck) Jordan-Young has been addressing for years. She has spent her career studying issues of sex, gender, and sexuality, and much of her work has combated misunderstandings of how hormones work and their impact on sex difference. Jordan-Young and her colleagues viewed what was happening to Chand as the latest attempt by sports officials to define and police gender. “We saw this as an opportunity to shine light on laws and policies that are not only unethical, they’re scientifically wrong,” she says.</p>
<p>Jordan-Young, who is the chair of the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, has been a pioneer in research on the intersection of science and social differences, especially concerning gender. A specialist in study design and measurement, she has delved into controversial debates about whether our brains are wired to be masculine or feminine, the importance of gender in the practice of medicine, and the significance of hormones such as testosterone.</p>
<p>After graduating from Bryn Mawr College, Jordan-Young earned a PhD from Columbia in sociomedical sciences, an interdisciplinary field that combines the technical aspects of public health research—such as epidemiology, biostatistics, measurement theory, and research design—with social science approaches to health and medicine. Through close collaboration with other scientists over the past 20 years, she has gained additional research skills in neuroscience and endocrinology, as well as cultural anthropology and history.</p>
<p>She spent the early part of her career researching HIV/AIDS and urban health while running a street-outreach program to prevent HIV among drug users and sex workers. As she looked at behavioral research on sexuality, such as studies that claimed to find biological differences between heterosexual and homosexual men, she was amazed by how much of what she read was deeply flawed. “I began to think about all the ways the studies were biased—through their recruiting methods, their measures, through analytical strategies that were subtly slanted toward finding differences,” she recalls.</p>
<p>Her research also led her to be critical of some practitioners of gender-specific medicine, which promotes the idea that treatments should be tailored by gender. While she acknowledges that the women’s health movement offered an important critique of how medicine considers the male body to be the default “norm” when conducting studies, she has concerns about how gender-specific medicine functions in practice. “A lot of claims that go under the banner of gender-specific medicine are more ideological than based in nuanced, detailed science,” Jordan-Young says.</p>
<p>Her interest in gender issues—and her expertise in analyzing studies and statistics—led her to devote 13 years to dissecting the scientific literature on whether hormones make our brains wired to be masculine or feminine in some consistent, demonstrable way. The result was the 2010 book <em> Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences </em> , which analyzed virtually all published research that supports the claims that sex differences are hardwired.</p>
<p>“The history of the so-called sex hormones is a really fantastic example of how it’s been hard to absorb evidence that contradicted expectations that people had for these ‘essences of masculinity and femininity’—and how we have repeatedly forgotten the more complicated story about how testosterone actually functions,” Jordan-Young says. Her study found methodological weaknesses, questionable assumptions, and enormous gaps between ambiguous findings and grand conclusions in years’ worth of studies. She argues that far more rigorous, biologically sophisticated study of gender differences is necessary.</p>
<p>Jordan-Young’s expertise in neuroscience came in handy in her analysis. “Neuroscience is currently a crucial arena for public discourse on sex/gender, and it’s not easy to break with the mainstream, which is mostly very committed to a conventional view of sex/gender differences, and often quite blind to methodological errors and biases in research,” she says.</p>
<p>Jordan-Young’s current research— for which she received a Guggenheim Fellowship in April—focuses on exploring disagreements among scientists in different disciplines about how testosterone functions in the body. “Testosterone has taken on a life of its own in the culture,” she said. “When people say things like, ‘There’s too much testosterone in the room,’ they’re using the term as a shorthand for all sorts of things that are wrapped up with maleness: masculinity, aggression, male privilege, libido.” This cultural baggage has a tendency to impede our understanding of the science—something that Jordan-Young believes is in play in the Chand case. While testosterone is a potent biological substance, multiple studies have shown that it doesn’t equal maleness—or athletic prowess—in any sort of simple or obvious way.</p>
<p>In the Chand case, Jordan-Young argued in articles for <em> The New York Times, Science, </em> and other publications that elite athletes have many physical characteristics that distinguish them from the mainstream, but none of those other natural variations were being singled out. For example, women with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, whose bodies are unable to process testosterone, often are taller than average and are overrepresented among elite athletes.</p>
<p>“Fairness means a level playing field, not level athletes,” she says. Chand has a condition called hyperandrogenism, which results in her body producing levels of testosterone that situate her in the male range in the view of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).</p>
<p>Using testosterone levels to determine who is allowed to compete is illogical, Jordan-Young argues, because there is no clear evidence showing that successful athletes have higher testosterone levels than less successful ones. “There is very little consensus among sport scientists about precisely what testosterone does, how important it is, and under which circumstances it’s important,” she says.</p>
<p>Jordan-Young and her colleagues’ work arguing for a more nuanced, complex understanding of hormones seems to be paying off: Last summer, the IAAF suspended its hormone testing rules for two years, allowing Chand to compete. But even if hormone testing is no longer permitted, cultural anxiety about gender persists. Sports is where much of that anxiety gets played out—despite the scientific consensus that sex is not one single thing in the body, and that there aren’t any bright lines that divide all males from all females.</p>
<p>“The ideal solution to worries about masculine women in sports would be for the sports organizations to actually take a positive step toward educating athletes and the general public about the range of natural variations among athletes,” Jordan-Young says. The biggest obstacle, however, may remain our cultural myths: “The folklore about testosterone doesn’t seem to get dislodged, even in the face of contrary evidence.”</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Topics:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-18" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gender</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-137" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">sex</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-33" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">research+scholarship</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-101" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">faculty</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-17" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">women</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics/athletics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Athletics</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-lede field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Lede:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Photograph by Phoebe Jones ’18</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-ledeimage field-type-image field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Lede image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/indesign/spring_2016/img_9690_opt.jpg" width="1348" height="899" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Section:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/magazine/article-section/through-gates" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">through the gates</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-art-sub-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Sub-section:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/article-sub-section/scholar" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scholar</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-subtitle field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Subtitle:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Rebecca Jordan-Young dislodges cultural myths at the intersection of gender and science </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-byline field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Byline:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">by R.A. Monroe</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-share field-type-addthis field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Share:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-issue field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Issue:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Spring 2016</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Feature Image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/indesign/spring_2016/img_9690_opt.jpg" width="1348" height="899" /></div></div></div>Fri, 20 May 2016 15:52:32 +0000ldownsbu66096 at https://barnard.eduLove at First Lab https://barnard.edu/magazine/winter-2016/love-first-lab
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><strong>In 2015, Jacqueline Barton ’74 </strong> became only the third woman to receive the Priestley Medal, the highest award given by the American Chemical Society. It was the capstone moment in a career that’s won her nearly every major prize in chemistry—a field long considered so male dominated that Barton never even considered the possibility of taking chemistry classes until she came to Barnard.</p>
<p>Barton grew up in New York City, where she attended the Riverdale Country School for Girls. “In those days, [girls] mostly took languages and arts classes, so I never took chemistry in high school,” she recalls. She did, however, take math classes—and excelled at them to such an extent that her teacher arranged for her to take calculus at the nearby boys’ school.</p>
<p>It was not until her time at Barnard that Barton was first exposed to the field that would become her life’s work. It was love at first lab. “I loved chemistry. I loved that it had the rigor and discipline of math, but at the same time the molecular world has beautiful colors and amazing three-dimensional architecture,” she says. Barton credits her Barnard professors, particularly Bernice Segal, then the chair of the chemistry department, with spurring her to work even harder. “[Segal] was just a very strong woman who could scare the heck out of you,” Barton recalls. “She had enormously high expectations—and you would rise to meet them.” After Barnard, Barton went on to get her PhD at Columbia. As a graduate student, she zeroed in on research—the chemistry of DNA—that helped inform her work over the next several decades.</p>
<h2>How DNA is like a telephone wire</h2>
<p>If you think of the DNA double helix as a kind of spiral staircase, Barton explains, then the DNA base pairs are the stair steps; they encode the information that makes you who you are. The nuclei of each of our cells are filled with 3 billion base pairs of information, and mutations or errors in those base pairs can cause serious problems. But damage to DNA is occurring all the time, whether through environmental exposure, personal habits, or just plain old aging. In order to deal with that damage, cells need a way to send out a kind of distress signal indicating that repair is needed—a kind of genetic work order, so to speak.</p>
<p>Barton was a professor at Columbia from 1983 to 1989; while there, she became interested in how DNA’s electrical properties were involved in that signaling process. “A stack of base pairs is somewhat like a stack of copper pennies, from a chemical standpoint,” she explains. “And you can pass a current through it, just as you’d be able to do with a stack of pennies.” With that in mind, Barton and her team made discrete DNA assemblies with probes attached at either end in order to observe current move through the helix. “We found that the electrons could flow over long molecular distances, but if any part of the stack was off, the electron flow would stop—just as it would in a stack of pennies if there was a misalignment that interrupted the connection,” Barton says. In other words, damage in any of the DNA base pairs would turn off the electron flow, serving as a sort of electrical signaling method for detecting damage or mismatches.</p>
<p>To put it another way, the DNA in our cells is a little bit like a telephone wire. “If two telephone repairmen can talk to one another through the line, they know it’s working,” Barton says. In our cells, if repair proteins can talk to each other across a particular region of DNA, then that section is functioning fine. If not, repairs are in order.</p>
<p>While Barton’s research has since won her many accolades and become widely accepted, in its early days it was considered controversial. Barton is grateful to those critics: “The skeptics pushed us to do more innovative experiments and to keep asking the next question. Even when people didn’t believe in us, which hurt a little bit, I always had confidence in our experiments. I knew that we just had to keep doing them.”</p>
<p>Barton and her team’s discoveries have the potential to make it easier to develop highly sensitive but affordable diagnostic tools to identify mutations, which can lead to conditions like cancer. “Some people have a predisposition to colon cancer, for example,” Barton explains. “That’s a result of mutations to their repair proteins. The next step is to see if we can design molecules that’ll help us fix that damage. This research is really helping us understand and address the source of cancerous transformation—and may also serve as a foundation for coming up with new therapeutics.” In 2001, Barton cofounded GeneOhm Sciences, which developed molecular diagnostic tests for detecting DNA mismatches. (In 2006, the company was acquired by BD Worldwide.)</p>
<h2>A leader and a teacher</h2>
<p>Even as Barton’s research was becoming widely recognized, she remained committed to teaching and mentoring students. After graduate school and a postdoc at Bell Laboratories and Yale, Barton taught at Hunter College and Columbia (where she was the first woman to receive tenure in the chemistry department), before moving across the country to join the faculty of the chemistry and chemical engineering division at the California Institute of Technology, where she is now the chair. Her husband, Peter Dervan, is also on the chemistry and chemical engineering faculty there. “The thing of which I’m most proud is that I’ve trained more than 25 women who are now in academic positions somewhere in the world, including Marisa Buzzeo ’01, assistant professor in Barnard’s chemistry department,” Barton says. “I care about that enormously—my graduate students are more important to me than any papers I write.”</p>
<p><story></story></p>
<p><em>“The skeptics pushed us to do more innovative experiments and to keep asking the next question. Even when people didn’t believe in us, which hurt a little bit, I always had confidence in our experiments. I knew that we just had to keep doing them.” </em></p>
<p>Barton has been recognized for her leadership and inspirational role within the field, as well as her groundbreaking research. Over the years she has been named a MacArthur Foundation fellow and was awarded a gold medal from the American Institute of Chemists. Barton was also the first woman to win several major honors, including the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation; the American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry; and the Nichols Medal and Baekeland Medal of the American Chemical Society. “She combines path-breaking research with service to the chemical profession in many arenas,” Madeleine Jacobs, the executive director of the American Chemical Society, said when Barton won the Priestley Medal. “She has also been a superb role model, not just for young women but for all young scientists, in her ability to balance her professional and personal life.”</p>
<p>That ability to balance various aspects of her life is something that Barton is proud of as well. “My family is another very, very important thing in my life,” Barton says. Her own experience as an eminent scientist and devoted mother belies the often-repeated idea that women have to choose between career and family. “You absolutely can do both,” insists Barton. (Her daughter bucked the family trend by eschewing chemistry in favor of law, which she is studying at Yale, and her stepson is an MD, doing a fellowship in Seattle.)</p>
<p>In 2010, President Obama awarded Barton the National Medal of Science, the highest honor bestowed upon American scientists. Her husband had won the award three years earlier, and the pair of medals now sits on the family’s mantel. “When the president presented me with the award, he noted that we were perhaps the only married couple who both had [won the award], and how displaying them together might intimidate our houseguests,” she says with a laugh. (The family’s houseguests, often impressive scientists in their own right, haven’t seemed to have a problem.)</p>
<p>Barton advises young chemistry students—and students of all disciplines—to follow their passion. “Have fun!” she says. “Find the thing you love, and if it’s chemistry, enjoy it. Don’t be scared of it. Do it because you love it.” She sees plenty of opportunities for young chemistry students in today’s world, whether that means going into academics, biotechnology, industry, or government. “Chemistry is critically important,” she says. “It’s important in terms of the pharmaceuticals we take, the food we grow, the insulation in our homes, and so much else. We need bright young people to take us into the next generation of chemistry.”</p>
<p>Barton herself is living proof that taking the advice to follow your passion can lead to a rewarding life full of challenges and inspiration. “I have the best job in the world,” she says, a sense of wonder creeping into her voice. “I get to interact with these wonderful young people. I don’t have a boss. I think up these crazy experiments, and then people actually go and try them.” •</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Topics:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-126" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">chemistry</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-130" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">biology</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-139" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">career</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-179" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">alumnae</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-ledeimage field-type-image field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Lede image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/indesign/winter_2016/nancyneiljackie_barton_barnard_retouched_opt.jpg" width="727" height="590" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Section:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/magazine/article-section/feature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Feature</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-art-sub-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Sub-section:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/article-sub-section/r-monroe" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">by R. A. Monroe</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-subtitle field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Subtitle:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Chemist Jacqueline Barton blazes a trail with innovative DNA research </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-byline field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Byline:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Photograph by Nancy Neil</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-associated-articles field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Associated Articles:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Alumnae In Science </div><div class="field-item odd">Pathways to Passion: John Glendinning</div><div class="field-item even">Creating a New Generation of Scientists </div><div class="field-item odd">Spotlight on Faculty: Chemistry Professors as Mentors</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-article-share field-type-addthis field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Article Share:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-mag-issue field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Magazine Issue:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Winter 2016</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Feature Image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/indesign/winter_2016/nancyneiljackie_barton_barnard_retouched_opt.jpg" width="727" height="590" /></div></div></div>Thu, 28 Apr 2016 18:03:34 +0000ldownsbu65181 at https://barnard.eduThe Wall Street Journal praises Professor Janna Levin’s Black Hole Blueshttps://barnard.edu/news/wall-street-journal-praises-professor-janna-levins-black-hole-blues
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-129" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">astronomy</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-128" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">physics</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-billion-year-old-postcard-1458933723" target="_blank"><em>The Wall Street Journal </em></a>recently reviewed <em>Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space</em> by Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Janna Levin ’88. The book tells the stories of the physicists and engineers who envisioned remarkable experiments in gravitational wave detection and the evolution of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). </p>
<p>John Gribbin, the reviewer, praises Levin’s focus on the personalities of the scientists, Rai Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Ron Drever, who set out to capture the gravitational waves from black hole collisions:</p>
<p>“Ms. Levin is herself a scientist, which explains her access, but more than that she is a writer rather than a scientist who writes. Her book touches only lightly upon the nuts and bolts of the theory and technology, but it contains enough to satisfy the reader’s interest in how such measurements can be made. It is more about the people, personalities and politics involved in getting such an expensive and long-gestating (four decades and counting) project to fruition.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-billion-year-old-postcard-1458933723" target="_blank">Read the full review.</a> <br /><br />
Read more about <em>Black Hole Blues</em> in <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/review-black-hole-blues-and-other-songs-from-outer-space-janna-levin-the-bodley-head" target="_blank">Times Higher Education</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://barnard.edu/profiles/janna-levin">Levin</a>, a PEN/Bingham Fellowship winner and a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow, began teaching <a href="http://physics.barnard.edu/department-astronomy-physics">physics and astronomy</a> at Barnard in 2004. In addition to her research publications, she is the author of the novel and popular science book <em>How the Universe Got its Spots: Diary of Finite Time in a Finite Space</em> (Anchor, 2003).</p>
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</div></div></div>Wed, 13 Apr 2016 18:26:13 +0000radams64596 at https://barnard.eduProfessor Rebecca Jordan-Young Awarded Prestigious Guggenheim Fellowshiphttps://barnard.edu/news/professor-rebecca-jordan-young-awarded-prestigious-guggenheim-fellowship
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-130" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">biology</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-137" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">sex</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><img alt="" class="media-image media-image-left" height="146" style="width: 250px; height: 180px; float: left; margin: 20px;" width="220" typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/styles/wysiwyg_small/public/news/images/9323535110_96f72a8096_b.jpg?itok=Oc_n-wOI" />The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded Rebecca Jordan-Young, Associate Professor and Chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, one of 175 fellowships given this year for achievement and exceptional promise. Jordan-Young received a science writing fellowship with her colleague Katrina Karakazis, senior research scholar at the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University.<br /><br />
The Guggenheim recognized Jordan-Young for her research examining divergent models of testosterone functioning. The work is part of her upcoming book <em>T: The Unauthorized Biography</em>, to be published by Harvard University Press. <br /><br />
The Guggenheim fellowship program is an important source of support for artists, scholars in the humanities and social sciences, and scientific researchers. The great variety of backgrounds, fields of study, and accomplishments of the fellows is one of the unique characteristics of the program. <br /><br />
Jordan-Young’s articles have appeared in <em>Science, Nature, BMJ, American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, The American Journal of Public Health, Neuroethics, Social Science and Medicine, S&amp;F Online</em>, and other scholarly journals. Her book <em>Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences</em> won a Distinguished Book Award from the Association for Women in Psychology in 2011. For more information regarding her work, visit <a href="https://womensstudies.barnard.edu/profiles/rebecca-jordan-young">her academic profile</a> on the Department of Women’s, Gender &amp; Sexuality Studies page.</p>
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</div></div></div>Wed, 13 Apr 2016 13:48:14 +0000radams64586 at https://barnard.eduProf. Janna Levin named among women pushing boundaries in STEM fieldshttps://barnard.edu/news/prof-janna-levin-named-among-women-pushing-boundaries-stem-fields
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-128" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">physics</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/read/an-a-z-of-women-pushing-boundaries-in-science-and-tech" target="_blank">Click here to view.</a></p>
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</div></div></div>Tue, 08 Mar 2016 22:59:42 +0000sbrowne63331 at https://barnard.eduProf. Janna Levin comments on scientific breakthrough proving Einstein's theoryhttps://barnard.edu/news/prof-janna-levin-comments-scientific-breakthrough-proving-einsteins-theory
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-101" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">faculty</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-128" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">physics</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Physics Prof. Janna Levin is featured in a number of media reports surrounding the <a href="https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211" target="_blank">Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory</a> (LIGO)'s recent discovery of gravitational waves. This major scientific breakthrough confirms a significant element of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, provides greater insight into the science of black holes, and opens the door to deeper exploration of how we study the universe in general.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/905726" target="_blank">Watch an interview</a> with Prof. Levin about the discovery on PBS's <em>Charlie Rose</em>:<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="320" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f6b9meh5Lbg" width="480"></iframe><br />
In an interview with <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/einstein-would-be-beaming-scientists-react-to-gravitational-waves/" target="_blank"><em>Scientific American</em></a><em>, </em>Prof. Levin responded to the announcement of the LIGO findings with great excitement. "This has never been done before," she said. "It's like the first time a telescope was pointed at the sky."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/einstein-would-be-beaming-scientists-react-to-gravitational-waves/" target="_blank">Read the full <em>Scientific American </em>article</a>.<br /><br />
Read additional coverage featuring Prof. Levin's insight from <em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html">The </a><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html" target="_blank">The </a></em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html" target="_blank"><em>New Yorker</em></a>, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/gravitational-waves-discovered-from-colliding-black-holes/" target="_blank">PBS Newshour</a>, and <em><a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160211-gravitational-waves-discovered-at-long-last/" target="_blank">Quanta Magazine</a>.</em><br /><br /><a href="https://barnard.edu/profiles/Janna-Levin">Prof. Levin </a>joined Barnard's faculty in 2004. Her research focuses on theories of the early universe, chaos, and black holes. She is also interested in the topology of the universe and the question of whether or not the universe is infinite. Other research topics include the cosmology of extra dimensions and string cosmology. She is the author of the novel <em>A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines</em> as well as the popular science book, <em>How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space.</em></p>
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</div></div></div>Fri, 12 Feb 2016 22:51:31 +0000sbrowne62786 at https://barnard.eduBarnard awarded substantial grant to forward STEM initiativeshttps://barnard.edu/news/barnard-awarded-substantial-grant-forward-stem-initiatives
<div class="field field-name-field-taxonomytopics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics-30" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Barnard College</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-36" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">education</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics/engineering" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Engineering</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/topics-13" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">science</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/topics/stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">STEM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Barnard College was recently awarded a $196,440 grant from the <a href="http://www.hluce.org/">Henry Luce Foundation</a> through the <a href="http://www.hluce.org/cblprogram.aspx">Clare Boothe Luce (CBL) program</a>, which is designed to encourage undergraduate women to enter, study, graduate, and teach in science, mathematics, and engineering. Named for Clare Boothe Luce -- an inspiring woman who achieved success in diverse fields including diplomacy, journalism, theatre, and politics and whose generous bequest funds the program -- CBL is the single most significant source of private support for women in the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering. Other CBL grant recipients this cycle included Duke University and the College of the Holy Cross.<br /><br />
“Barnard is deeply grateful to the Henry Luce Foundation for its endorsement of the College’s efforts to educate outstanding young women who seek to advance the world through scientific and computational analysis,” Barnard Provost Linda A. Bell said.<br /><br />
Beginning in the summer of 2016, the grant will support two cohorts of four exceptional Barnard students as Clare Boothe Luce Research Scholars<strong>, </strong>who will pursue computational research with Barnard faculty mentors on scientific questions concerning big data. Prof. Timothy Halpin-Healy, Department of Physics Chair, will serve as the faculty director for the CBL program.<br /><br />
Barnard’s Clare Boothe Luce Research Scholars will be selected through a competitive process based on their demonstrated potential as future research scientists. Students will apply during the winter of their sophomore year, describing the research they intend to explore with their mentor and the computational methodologies that will be used. Scholars will receive support for their research during two summers as part of Barnard’s <a href="https://barnard.edu/summer-research-institute">Summer Research Institute</a> and two academic years. In addition, CBL Research Scholars will engage in a variety of activities with their cohort, and will receive advice about graduate school planning and fellowship applications.<br /><br />
Though much progress has been made in recent years, gender disparity remains a challenge in STEM fields, specifically in the physical, mathematical, and computational sciences. For over 25 years, and with support from a variety of sources including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Mellon Foundation, the Altman Foundation, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, and the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Barnard has developed an extensive set of activities and programs that encourage students to study, major in, and pursue science as a career. <br /><br />
Read more about the Clare Booth Luce grant in <a href="http://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/luce-foundation-awards-22-million-in-grants">Philanthropy News Digest</a>, <a href="http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/12/10/heres-what-one-foundation-is-doing-to-support-women-in-stem.html" target="_blank">Inside Philanthropy</a>, and the <a href="http://columbiaspectator.com/news/2015/12/13/luce-scholars" target="_blank">Columbia Spectator</a>.</p>
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</div></div></div>Fri, 04 Dec 2015 16:58:05 +0000sbrowne61311 at https://barnard.edu